With the increased popularity of various home entertainment video components, such as video disc and tape players, home computers and satellite TV receivers, the interconnection of these components has become more complex.
One interconnection method is to manually connect cables between the components which are presently to be used. This method is obviously unsatisfactory due to the manual re-arranging of cables required each time it is desired to operate the system in a different manner.
Another approach is to couple each component to a plurality of switches, which may be centrally located or distributed. The switches can be manually or remotely controlled to route the various video signals between specific ones of the components to enable the system to operate as desired by the user. Although this approach is more satisfactory than the first, it requires extensive cable connections to the switches, which are unsightly, subject to signal discontinuity because of the many connections and somewhat complicated for the user to set-up and control. Additionally, the complexity of this type of system increases with the addition of future components.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 508,605 entitled A Distributed Switched Component Audio/Video System filed concurrently with the present application in the name of B. W. Beyers, describes an audio/video component interconnection system including a video signal conductor having a given characteristic impedance for transferring video signal in a serial manner among the video components. A switch located in series with the video conductor, when non-conductive, separates the continuity of the video conductor into first and second segments so as to allow simultaneous and independent video signal distribution among the video components associated with the first and second segments.
It is herein recognized that when the continuity of the video signal conductor in the above described system is interrupted, provision must be made for proper impedance levels at the discontinuity presented by the non-conductive switch in order to minimize undesired signal reflections.